RIDERS WOULD BE TAKEN FROM CALIFORNIA CALTRAIN STATION TO STANFORD RESEARCH PARK

By Dan Stober

Steve Raney is working hard to pitch what he admits is a somewhat outlandish notion of how to cut commute traffic
in Palo Alto: a $50 million monorail system that would ferry workers between the 160 companies in the Stanford
Research Park and the Caltrain station on California Avenue.

The system that he began dreaming up while working on his graduate degree at the University of California-Berkeley
would send riders scooting over the elevated track in 300 small, three-passenger monorail cars at 30 mph. The driverless
electric cars would avoid delays by passing by intermediate stations, not stopping until they reached their destination,
Raney said.

There are no engineering plans yet for his ``personal rapid transit'' shuttle, and no money, but Wednesday night
the 43-year-old software engineer gathered his hundreds of pages of research and a flashy computer animation to
present them to the city's Planning and Transportation Commission.

The system lives only in digital graphics and cardboard mock-ups of the vehicles. But Raney -- a former technology
evangelist at Microsoft -- and his fellow enthusiasts in an organization called Cities21.org, believe it can deliver
great benefits.

A proposed monorail system using 3-person electric vehicles would
link the CA Ave. Caltrain station with Stanford Research park

20,000 workers

There are 20,000 workers at the 1,000-acre research park, enough during daylight hours to significantly increase
Palo Alto's population. Among the firms there are Hewlett-Packard, Roche Bioscience and Xerox.

Getting more commuters to abandon their cars for the train -- or for a carpool that would drop passengers at a
monorail station -- would slash traffic and reduce air pollution, Raney said. Moreover, he adds, it could free
up parking lots for other uses.

Raney has held tech jobs at a number of firms in Silicon Valley, including Microsoft, Pinnacle Systems and Videologic,
before going back to school to get a master's degree in transportation planning from Berkeley last year. He is
currently doing consulting work out of his home in north Palo Alto.

Private funding

Investors, not the government, would pay to build the five-mile system, he said, although he doesn't have any backers
yet. ``We are basically trying to fish for wealthy technologists to get behind it,'' he said.

``It's an improbable sort of proposal to pull off, kind of a crazy proposal,'' he said. There is no successful
model elsewhere of what he wants to do. A project by Raytheon near Boston failed in recent years. Stanford's Marguerite
shuttles already provide free rides between Caltrain and the research park.

But, Raney said, new technology can make it happen in Palo Alto. The cars will be lightweight, drastically cutting
the monorail construction costs, he said. Evolving wireless and cell phone technology would allow individual cars
to be summoned when needed or timed to meet the train.

The highest technological hurdle is software to keep the cars from running into each other, he said.

Riders would love the system, he said -- it would even attract tourists.

The proposed route

To become a reality, Raney's brainstorm would require a large dose of
cooperation from the city and Stanford University.

The word from Bill Phillips, managing director of real estate at the Stanford Management Company, was not promising.
He said the technology is unproven and the ridership projections overly optimistic. Even when the technology matures,
he said, the project would be better installed as part of a new business park, not Stanford's existing research
park.

Raney was familiar with the objections. ``We certainly have a good understanding of how hard it is to pull this
off,'' he said.

We would have preferred your June 25 "Pie in the Sky" story avoided the "Cities21 versus Stanford"
angle. Stanford is the South Bay's leader in commute trip reduction and a national innovator in the production
of workforce-oriented housing. These are two of the main objectives of Cities21. Cities21 has benefited from Stanford
Management Company's (SMC) review of the Silver Bullet study. We're grateful that SMC volunteered to undertake
significant time and expense.

SMC and the City of Palo Alto have supplied support letters for Cities21 attempts to increase carpooling through
wireless technology (http://www.cities21.org/trakride.htm ) and have offered to provide carpoolers to test our software.

The challenge is to get the first personal monorail system built anywhere in the world  creating the first new
ground transportation mode in 90 years. In our "mature democracy," cities and universities are justifiably
hesitant to host the first system.

At this point, we're the first to admit that SMC should be skeptical about the Silver Bullet proposal. As personal
monorail companies make progress over the coming months, we believe this skepticism will decrease. We can't imagine
the Silver Bullet becoming a reality without Stanford President John Hennessey taking a test ride and coming away
with a positive experience.

As far as moving the proposal forward politically, we've prepared a small step for the City to take: adopt a franchising
strategy: http://www.cities21.org/franchise.html. We believe this circumvents the inertia of mature democracy, while addressing most constituent
concerns. The strategy lays out a large series of hurdles to clear to make the Silver Bullet a reality.

If we can send three men to the moon 200,000 miles away, we should be able to move 200,000 people to work three
miles away. - Richard M. Nixon

A local transit group is trying to get traction for a five-mile $50 million personal monorail system in the Stanford
Research Park that
would link to Caltrain. Cities21, a group of transit professionals, will present their ideas to Palo Alto's Planning
and Transportation Commission next Wednesday with the hope of sparking some interest in a project that would be
privately funded.

"It is pretty tricky to get the first customer for this," said Cities21 founder and Executive Director
Steve Raney. "In today's political climate, it is just so hard to move this thing forward."

Raney said he has given presentation on the Person Rapid Transit system recently at a national transportation conference.
He compared the "shuttle" to the first electric trolley that revolutionized urban transportation.

The project, dubbed the "Silver Bullet," would build the five miles of elevated tracks looping through
Stanford Research Park to the Caltrain station on California Avenue.

The elevated monorail system -- not unlike the People Mover at Disneyland -- would transport up to three people
via a driverless
electric vehicle that runs up to 30 mph.

According to Raney, the technology for the system is currently under development in Minnesota, Texas and Britain.
A study by Cities21
shows a reduction in solo commuting from 89 percent to 45 percent with the personal transit system.

Planning and Transportation Director Steve Emslie said the group gave a presentation to the city a few years ago
that was a more
preliminary plan. Emslie said the city is in no way involved in the project. He said he does not know of any city
in the country that employees such a transportation system.

The proposal would be paid for through "franchise agreement," whereby the city contracts with monorail
developers who would take on the
investment risk rather than taxpayers. The group believes the commuting system would result in less traffic, less
greenhouse gas, fewer cars and would help attract employees.

Palo Alto people mover would require
Stanford OK

Published Monday, January 15, 2001, in the Daily News

Stanford could be key in realizing 'people mover'

By Mark Shahinian
Daily News Staff Writer

A new transit group, Cities21, aiming to get 8,000 commuters out of their cars, is proposing a people mover that
would run from the California Avenue Caltrain station to the Stanford Research Park.

The proposed $76.5 million, 5-mile long system would consist of individual electric pods moving at 30 mph on overhead
railings. Nothing exactly like it has been built, but advocates say the project is both realistic and necessary
to tame the area's increasing traffic problems.

"I've studied these things all over, and when I heard this one, it has all the ingredients you want,"
said Jeral Poskey, a student at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and one of the project's promoters.

Four-person pods

The people mover would use individual four-person pods moving on narrow, overhead tracks. Stations would be near
the large companies in Page Mill Road-area research park, including Hewlett-Packard and Xerox.

Those companies, whose employees quit because of horrendous commutes, have a lot to gain from the project, said
Steve Raney, another Cities21 member. The companies could save $11.5 million per year if they reduce employee turnover
one percent, he said.

Poskey said in a small system like the one Cities21 is proposing, taxpayers would have to finance most of the $76
million cost. Much of the money could come from the federal or state government, though, he said.

The system, however, depends on Caltrain electrification, which is supposed to be funded by Measure A, approved
by voters in November. With Caltrain's electrification, higher train frequency and speeds can bring more commuters
to Palo Alto from outlying areas, Raney said.

8,000 users

The system would be designed to move 8,000 of the 23,000 workers in the research park to and from Caltrain. But
Cities21 also envisions eventual expansion out to Stanford Shopping Center so workers can run errands at lunchtime.

Palo Alto councilman Bern Beecham said the key to the proposed transit system is Stanford University. Under Stanford's
permit to build more housing and office space, the university can't generate more car commutes, Beecham said.

"The work they've done shows there are practical solutions that provide good people mover systems," Beecham
said. "The question right now is financing. I think they pointed out Palo Alto has a lot on its plate."
College Terrace resident John Ciccarelli said the proposal could help Caltrain's ridership. "A process like
this is interesting to me because it makes my neighborhood an even better place to live," Ciccarelli said.

A similar proposal has been designed for the Cincinnati area, but has not yet been built, Poskey said.